Drabbles
by Scarlet Elixir
Summary: Random pieces I decided to write instead of doing my homework. Various topics- whatever is on my mind really. A drabble may later evolve to become a story, but for now, they are as they are. Zutara, Aang, Zuko, Katara, Toph, Azula.
1. Tough Choices

"Do you understand what to do?"

I nodded slowly.

"Do you remember what will happen if you don't?"

I nodded again.

"Now, if you do what you're told, that doesn't have to happen. If you disobey however, it happens immediately. Got it?"

I looked down and closed my eyes angrily. I single tear dripped down the side of my face onto the floor.

"Good." I could almost hear the smile in her cold voice.

Suddenly, the girl whipped around and narrowed her eyes at something out the window that I couldn't see from the ground. She turned to the two girls whispering to each other off to the side.

"Quiet," she hissed. "Someone's coming."

And I was alone.

I wiped the side of my face off on the blood-red fabric that concealed the skin of my shoulder, and then let my tired head hang. I prayed to Agni and Yue and every other god and influential person I had ever met or heard of, I even sent a prayer out to Koh, the face-stealer.

The door swung gently open. I heard soft footsteps on the floor. I dragged my heavy head up to face the new person in the room, dreading what I knew I would see. I squeezed my eyelids together, afraid to open them, just delaying the moment really. I pressed them together as tightly as I could. Wishing with all of my being that the person was anyone else. Praying that they leave, would spare themselves. The door creaked open another inch and a shaft of light fell onto my face.

"Katara?!"

My eyes opened in a flash at the sound of the voice. It was, of course, who I'd expected, but hearing the pure, sweet sound of that voice sent a wave of shock through me. Maybe shock wasn't the right word. More like shock, disbelief, panic, sadness, and fear all rolled into one. Nevertheless, I knew that my pupils had shrunk and my breathing had become quite labored, as was the case whenever I was afraid. And although every part of my being was crying out to run and yell at the person to get out – get out while they still could – I just sat there. Sat with my eyes as wide as they've ever been and my lungs straining against my chest so hard I thought I might explode, but not moving a muscle.

"Katara! I can't believe I found you!"

The person fell to their knees in front of me and threw their arms around my neck. I felt my arms wrap around them to answer the hug. Under their arms, the cloak I was wearing shifted slightly.

The person pulled away, and the huge, beaming smile fell off their face as they caught sight of my own distraught face.

"What's wrong? Are you all right?"

I wanted to say no. Every inch of my being was again screaming that I should take off out of the open door and pull this person along with me, or at least shove them out the door and block the way, but just as before, something stopped me. I was thinking, pondering… choosing.

My lips tugged up at the corners slightly as I attempted to smile at the person, and I tried to make my face look less hysterical then I felt. I didn't want my eyes to betray me, so I closed them, and when I opened them a second later, they were empty. I wasn't sure how it looked, but it felt forced to me.

Apparently, the person believed my acting skills, or at least pretended to for the time being, because they smiled slightly back at me and stood up, offering me a hand.

"C'mon, Katara. Sokka's are worried sick. You and Zuko left _yesterday_ to look for Azula. We've been looking everywhere for you two."

I stared at his hand, and was temporarily distracted from my mental debate by his words. I didn't want Sokka to worry.

I shook my head (both in response to his words and to clear out my head again – I had, after all, only a few seconds left to make the terrible decision)

"Why?" he asked in his small, perfect voice.

Automatically, I glanced at the door opposite the open one he had entered from, and then quickly glanced back at him. The look had been almost instantaneous, but he caught it anyway. He turned towards the door and took a few steps. His hand rested on the doorknob.

"What's this–"

"No–" I started to gasp. And then I winced. _Stupid Katara_.

He glanced back at me.

"Is everything okay, Katara?"

I froze. Alright. I really couldn't put it off for another second now. I had to make the choice right then, because how I responded would change _everything_.

It would have been easier if my heart and my head had been screaming different things. But they were screaming the same thing: they couldn't decide.

Could I really take away the world's last hope for peace? Of course not.

I dug my nails into my palms so hard I felt blood squishing under my fingernails. I didn't care.

Logic couldn't help me. Not when my head couldn't figure a way out of it, and I had both the beautiful expression of the person standing in front of me and the feeling of the black iron on my ankle. I rubbed the chain against my skin with the other heel in thought as I pondered this (rather frantically, I may add) for a second. _Logic couldn't help me._

In my mind, centuries had lapsed since I'd heard the voice that sounded like music, but it had really only been two or three seconds. He probably wouldn't notice. In fact, I realized, I didn't want him to. I was going to make the choice from my gut… at the very last second, so my mind would not have time to interfere.

"What?" I said, pretending I hadn't heard him.

_Pathetic_. I'd heard him. I just wanted to hear his voice, in case it was the last time.

"Katara is there any reason why I shouldn't go in there?" he asked gently, lowering his voice as if he was speaking to a child. It was the most bitter kind of irony, I had always thought of him somewhat like a child of my own. And yet, what I needed to do…

_ALL RIGHT! _My mind screamed. _DO IT NOW!_

My brain shut down.

"No," I heard my mouth say in an empty, unrecognizable voice. "No reason at all."

He nodded at me with another barely-there smile and turned to the door. He twitched the doorknob and stepped cautiously inside.

"Hello, Avatar," I heard Azula say.

I felt the static of the lightening whip through the air, and Aang's body flew out of the room and landed with a hard thump in the middle of my room.

I winced and closed my eyes as he hit the floor, but I didn't move from my place.

Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee walked in through the door followed by a few Dai Li agents.

"Well, that was… interesting," the Princess said.

"A deal is a deal," I hissed at her through my teeth.

"So it is," she said.

She held out a hand out towards the Dai Li agents dangling a key. One man disappeared back into the room, while a second man took the key, walked over to me, and shoved it into the lock on my ankle. The lock popped open, freeing my ankle, but leaving an exposed red ring on my skin. At a sound, Azula glanced beyond the doorway into the connected room. She nodded, and then turned back to me.

"Hurry up."

She glanced down at Aang, who lay motionless but for a shock or two of electricity that ran through his body, twitching it involuntarily. She kicked him lightly in the arm.

"We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him, would we?"

I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Show me."

She raised one eyebrow slightly in an amused way.

"Is that really necessary?"

"Yes," I growled back. "Show him to me, or I'll let Aang die."

The last part appeared to shock her for half a second, before she regained her smooth face, with a hint of a smirk playing on her lips.

"Fine."

She waved into the adjoining room, and the first Dai Li agent walked back in supporting a limp Zuko. He looked horrible, but still, I almost smiled seeing him alive and (mostly) unharmed.


	2. Chapter 2

I read once, in the paper, of a man in our city who killed his wife in a terrible rage. A crime of passion. He was not given jail time per se, but he was diagnosed with a severe case of some multiple personality disorder, and sent to live out the remainder of his life in a special home, where he would be watched carefully, should he ever act drastically and take another's life. The day he was given a police escort from his home via street car, I dressed up in my Sunday best, and went out to meet the procession on Main Street. I told one of my nurses that I was just going to confession, but instead I walked along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road as the car as it slowly wound its way through the traffic. Occasionally the car would have to stop for a pedestrian or light, and I would pick up an object from a street vendor to inspect, but the car would start moving again and so would I. I followed the car with its escorts across the city, until we were just around the corner from the home, then I turned around and walked back in the opposite direction, to the church. I had no interest in seeing the place they were taking him.

Throughout the trip, I don't believe the man in the car saw me, in fact, I am nearly positive that no one truly saw me. Considering who I am, you would think everyone would stop to watch the elusive princess walking the streets like a commoner, but I can become invisible when I so choose. This has proved very useful as I live a life vicariously close to the man in the car's life. Just as he had two personalities, I live two lives. Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say I work two jobs. Two lives. Two jobs. Two personalities needed. But you won't see anyone sending me to an asylum anytime soon.

I began my first job metaphorically the moment I was born, because from that moment on I have been a princess. While my duties to my country may be difficult sometimes, the second job is far more difficult and challenging, and also more difficult to say exactly when I began, but I enjoy it far more. I have been training for the second since I was able to stand and needless to say I have trained hard. My mother saw to it that no one opposed me or her when we were training and no one ever questioned us when we said we were going out or busy. It is probably more accurate to say, however, that the day I watched a man being taken away in a street car, was the day I truly began this second job. Shortly after returning from confession, I learned that my mother had been murdered. After that day, I did not miss a training practice, or a chance to take one of my guns and shoot someone down. I have done my fair share of unlawful things, but that day was, ironically, the last time I ever went to confession. I was nine at the time.

Growing up, I know my father cared for me, because he always provided for my brother and me. He kept money coming in, and put food on our table. Metaphorically, of course. Not once did he come home for dinner, but nevertheless there was always someone to put food on the table. Because of his work forcing him to be so infrequent in so many peoples lives, our "people" had him declared legally dead. As his only children, we were required to attend his fake funeral. Being in that musky room with a fake corpse of my father probably should have been enough to drive me crazy, but the cruel hysterical irony of seeing all the fakers crying over his fake body was enough to pull me through. The only people there besides Sokka and I were the people not important enough to be let in on the little secret that he wasn't actually dead, yet who considered themselves important enough to dress in black and spend hours moaning about "such a depressing, untimely departure." We found this rather hilarious. We did not find it quite as hilarious the second time around however, when the same crowd came to the same place to moan through the same tears, because this time, elsewhere, there was in fact a real casket with a real body that was seemingly identical to the faux one of our mother that was smiling up at us then.

So my mother was gone from our lives, and when my father left to fight in the war, he was gone too. He left my brother and me in charge of the family business. The real family business that is. My brother took his place as President of the Board. That may seem like a cushy title, but he really did it because he is the greatest big brother ever. Being older, he got first pick of jobs, and he chose to be the one that gives the orders and makes the list of names, but he let me be the one who takes the list, and makes the people on it disappear. Like I said, best brother ever.


	3. Break In

I am very tired, so I apologize if this is awful, but I really just wanted to put something out there to prove I am not deceased. Also, this was just sort of on my mind.

Again, I apologize if I sound a little loopy… it's because I am right now. I also am sorry if there are grammatical flaws; this is in no way the fault of my Beta or anyone else... just me needing sleep.

I hope this makes sense, if not please let me know and I'll fix it. Please R&R!

* * *

There is silence. There is stillness. There is no rational reason to be paranoid, and yet as she sits alone in the room, the girl is on edge.

She rises gently from her seat and takes a few steps towards the door, watching it, suspicious. With all of her deathly sharp senses, she knows beyond a doubt that there is no one behind it, and yet there is a terrible sensation twisting in her stomach that tells her she is not truly alone.

Suddenly, a hand smothers her mouth, and arms are iron chains around her chest. Instantly, instinctually, she is fighting and burning and thrashing. For a moment, she almost believes that she is succeeding, as she has so many times before in her life, and then there are more arms, more pressure, stopping her breath in her chest and crushing her ribs so hard together she is more aware than she ever was of how fragile her bones actually are.

She mentally curses herself for not seeing this flaw. How could she not have recognized this weakness and its potential to be exploited? But she can't answer that question. She can't answer any question at all really, because there is a growing fog in her mind. The arms are unrelenting and constricting her blood flow. As she begins to feel the numbing coldness in her fingers that signals her she is going to lose consciousness, a voice meets her ear.

"Do not struggle."

The _or we will hurt you_ is implied. The message is clearly a violent order and a threat, but the voice is not cruel; it is melodic and calm.

Even as her brain whirs and evaluates to find a way out of the situation, her protests melt into twitches. Mercifully, the pressure is relieved, and there is abruptly only the one hand left covering her mouth. She barely has a chance to lift an arm before she feels cords replacing chains, real ropes where the arms had been. Her limbs are immediately bound and she falls back helpless into the one whose hand is suppressing her sound.

Helpless, for the first time in years, she allows herself to be lowered down to the floor in her bound state, and although she expects the stone floor, she feels cloth and soft, warm fingers pressing her back into a lap. There is a single sharp prick in her shoulder and then warmth washes over her. The hand falls away from her mouth, and then there is no contact between her body and the intruders', except for her head, which is now being cradled in the stranger's lap.

With the warming feeling that pulses through comes a gentle dreamlike peace, a pleasant anesthetizing calm. The sweet woman's voice is there again and it croons in her ear.

"Sleep, Azula."

She smiles. Her eyelids flutter closed as she succumbs to the sweet warmth, and the blissful darkness folds over her consciousness.

Very gently, soft, warm arms close around the Princess's body and lift her up. The limp form is passed to another figure clad in black, and a syringe is safely stowed. As the small group heads out, there are looks passed amongst the gold, blue, and grey eyes there, but no one says a word.

* * *

See that could've been worse, right? No? Oh well, I tried. ;)

This is just a stream-of-consciousness type writing activity and is not part of a larger story/plot arch as of yet... hence _Drabbles_.


End file.
